


The Merry Hours of Paris

by AnonymousPumpkin



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera & Related Fandoms, Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Bisexual Female Character, Bisexual Male Character, Canon Character of Color, Canonical Character Death, F/M, Gay Male Character, Grief/Mourning, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Long-Distance Friendship, M/M, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 17:06:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5710261
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousPumpkin/pseuds/AnonymousPumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He would have been contented if that had been the last he saw of Christine Daae. Not happy, perhaps, but content with his lot in life. Given how little he had influenced her, and how much she had already given him, her presence in one of the darker periods of his life was a Godsend, and he found himself thinking that perhaps Erik was not far off in his conviction that Christine was an angel.</p><p>The burial of the Opera Ghost, and everything that came after. The story of those he left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Merry Hours of Paris

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in three days. Which is probably the fastest I've ever written anything. I'm actually really proud, because this idea has been in my head pretty much since I read Phantom the first time, and this is the third time I've tried to put it to paper.
> 
> I wrote literally this entire thing while listening to 'Death of a Bachelor' on repeat. I feel it bears stating that that song has NO influence on the story whatsoever. This is a purely platonic romance.

The night they buried Erik, Christine slept in his guest room. It was highly improper, and being so much her greater in age and situation, he couldn’t help feeling as though he were somehow taking advantage of her. But she looked so lost that he couldn’t bring himself to protest when she requested--nay,  _ begged _ to be allowed to impose further upon his generosity. Her eyes were dry through the funeral--if it could be called that-- but Shahin wept enough for the both of them. She left a pot of flowers over his grave. He had requested his grave be unmarked, but she insisted on knowing where it was. Or at least, Shahin assumed that was why she had left the flowers out. Perhaps, he thought, this was some small revenge on her part. He had seen Erik’s parlor during their unfortunate “courtship.”

The ride back was quiet. Shahin had hired a buggy to wait for them while they did their work, and tactfully ignored the man’s curious look when they’d disembarked. No doubt the two of them painted an odd portrait. They could not have been a more striking pair, he dark and silent, and she small and bright. The fact that they returned weeping and covered in dirt likely shifted the driver’s suspicions from the amorous to the criminal. Though perhaps he didn’t notice the former detail. It had been a chilly, quiet night when they descended one final time into Erik’s domain. When they emerged, it was raining, heavy enough that even Shahin was bowed over from the weight of it. They ducked into the buggy like guilty children, feeling more rain than human. They settled into a heavy, contemplative silence.

The sky crashed and wailed, openly weeping, Shahin thought, for the death of such a brilliant mind. Miss Daae wept now as well, looking quite the widow with her black shawl and shining cheeks..nay, he should not think such things. It was a disservice to them both. He looked away and out the window, not that there was much to see. The darkness was so complete that even the streetlights were hidden behind the world’s tears. And if Shahin wept as well...well, there was no one to see.

“It is as if God is crying.”

Miss Daae’s voice was so soft that it scarcely broke the silence. Shahin tried not to look up too quickly at her voicing his own thoughts. She was staring at her hands, which were folded in her lap, and he didn’t need to see her face clearly to know her gaze lingered on that finger which, until hours ago, had been adorned by a plain gold ring a little too big. He wanted to tell her that one day she would stop staring, that one day she would stop hearing his whispers in empty rooms, but he could not lie to her. Erik was not even dead a week, and Shahin knew that he would never shake off his memory.

He could think of nothing to say, but the silence following her statement was too heavy, too empty. He spoke up-- coughed to clear the tears from his throat-- and responded as best he could. He searched his mind quickly for words, a rare practice for a man who normally chose every word with deliberate care.

“He would’ve found it fitting,” he finally settled for saying, and perhaps that was the right thing to say. She looked up and met his eyes for a moment, and between them there passed a moment of shared grief, joy, and relief that transcended all words and descriptions. It left them both shaken and tearful again, and they were forced to look away, Miss Daae down to her lap and Shahin out the window.

It was not far to his apartment, but it felt like an eternity before the carriage pulled to a stop. Shahin led Miss Daae out of the carriage, and, having neglected to bring an umbrella in the misty fugue he had fallen into, was forced to shelter her beneath his coat, allowing himself to be soaked through in the few steps to his doorstep. She let out a soft yelp of surprise when her foot fell into a deep puddle, and flew to the door almost quicker than he could keep up with her.

It was not  _ too  _ late. Darius was nowhere to be found, likely having left hours ago, but the remains of dinner were lying in wait for Shahin’s return. While Miss Daae dried herself on the doorstep, he hid away the note that dedicated the meal to him, and called her in to eat.

“Aren’t you hungry?” she asked, and he hastily made a denial.

“Not at all. I ate before we set out. I...I knew it would be a long night.” Not entirely a lie...he had eaten a biscuit the moment Darius confirmed Miss Daae’s arrival, and he  _ had _ known they would not return until late. Perhaps not  _ this _ late, but he would not begrudge either of them for dawdling in their grief. His appetite was quite ruined, however.

“Well...we can split it?” she suggested in a small voice, not looking at him.

Shahin was a moment from refusing again when he saw the shadow pass over her face, and his refusal died on his tongue. Instead he smiled with an effort and agreed. It took just a moment to procure another plate, and they settled down for a late and silent dinner. It should have been awkward, two nearly-perfect strangers sharing a dinner and grieving a man who had caused nothing but trouble for them both...but it was not awkward. It was painful, yes, and it was difficult, yes, but they both felt strangely at home (though Shahin, being in his own home, maybe been slightly biased in this), and were not as uncomfortable as they may have been.

Too exhausted to do anything else, Shahin put their dishes away to clean later (or, more likely, for Darius to sneak in and clean while his back was turned) as soon as they were finished eating and showed Miss Daae to his “guest room.” It wasn’t that much of a guest room-- only one person had ever used it, and he did not like to-- as it had originally been some kind of storage closet that he had determined was slightly too large for the purpose. She assured him that it was perfectly fine.

“I have slept in barns and attics, you know,” she said, and walked strongly into the room. She turned to him with her chin high, smiling in spite of her red-rimmed eyes and trembling hands. “And I dare that, compared to the carriage floor, this will be heaven!”

In the face of such optimism, Shahin could do nothing but smile.

“Good night, Miss Daae.”

“Good night...oh...pardon me, monsieur, I don’t...I don’t know your name. I...I don’t think your name is actually  _ the Persian _ ...” Even in the half-darkness, he could see her face darken and her eyes widen in chagrin, and he did something he didn’t think he would have been able to do so soon...he laughed.

“Shahin,” he told her.

Her smile warmed the room by several degrees. “Good night, Shahin.”  
Shahin retreated to his own room. He hung up his coat, the one he always wore to the Opera, and from the pocket drew out the black mask. He stood there for a few minutes just staring at it, willing a light to shine from within those dark eyeholes (and knowing he would likely scream like a child if it did), and wanting the black silk to dance again with the heavy breath of his oldest friend. When the first tear hit the fabric, he almost threw it away, feeling a flash of...what? Of guilt? He didn’t know what new form of pain he felt now, but he was too tired to deal with it. He laid the mask gently on his desk, beside the empty wine bottle Erik had given him years ago (a joke gift-- he knew Shahin didn’t drink-- filled with apple juice). He didn’t look at it as he undressed, and washed the dirt from under his nails.

Though his head and heart were heavy, Shahin could not sleep. For a little while, he only laid awake. After a little while, he laid awake and wept quietly. Though he felt strangely disconnected from the events of the last week, his body and heart were protesting what his mind refused to accept. He had known of Erik’s decline for years, even before Miss Daae had come to the Opera House, but no amount of preparation was enough for the death of a dear friend. In truth, he had been mourning Erik every day for the past few weeks as he’d nursed him, but it felt strange and wrong to know that there would be no clandestine trip to the Opera’s depths the next morning. The whispers he heard in his mind would be just that. No longer could he shake his fist and mutter “Damn that fool Erik!” when he tripped or lost his hat.

When he finally found sleep, it was restless and short. He woke several times throughout the night from dreams half-remembered, and just before sunrise he rose the final time, unwilling to see a pair of watery yellow eyes any longer. He said “good morning,” and though he told himself it was to himself, to the world, or to God, the truth was that his eyes lingered on the black mask on his desk when he said it. His heart clenched in his chest and he looked away quickly. He dressed quickly and stood a moment in his door, listening to make sure Miss Daae was still asleep on the other side of the door.

The house was quiet. There was still the patter of rain outside, but it was no longer the violent and bitter sobbing of the newly grieving, but the soft whimpers of the sorrowfully resigned. He made himself a cup of coffee, stroked the fire to life, and sat by the window. He still had no appetite, and was sure that the dinner last night would last him for quite a while at this rate.

Miss Daae rose close to noon, and in spite of her long slumber emerged looking bleary-eyed and exhausted. She sank immediately onto the sofa, resting her head on the arm, eyes half-closed. She looked like a damsel in a painting. Unsure if she’d seen him-- he was a bit out of the way in his chair-- Shahin cleared his throat. She looked at him, and he tried not to fidget under the weight of her sleepy blue gaze.

“Good morning, Miss Daae. Would you care for some coffee?” His voice came out softer than he’d intended, and it caught roughly-- an unfortunate side effect of the tears, he suspected. It was not entirely unexpected.

For a moment, she said nothing at all and when she did, it was not to answer his question.

“Christine.”

“Come again?”

She lifted her head off the chair of the sofa. “You may call me Christine.” She smiled shakily. “I feel we have been through too much together to go on formality.”

“Ah.” He smiled back, which added to her own. “Very well, Miss D-- mm...Christine.”

Her smile widened. In any other circumstance, he thinks, she would have laughed. “Miss Christine will have to do,” she said.

They had the skeleton of a conversation, halting and awkward and full of too many memories. She mentioned that he looked better than the last time she had seen him. A little bit. He was certain she was lying, but he supposed better to be close to someone else’s death than his own.

They shared a more cheerful breakfast--nay, a brunch. It was at one in the afternoon. The sun crept out about halfway through the meal, lighting up the room and made it easier for them to speak. This time, they talked easier, avoiding the topics which were not to be discussed. She asked about Darius, he asked after Raoul. She helped him clean up, insisting even after he insisted that her insistence to help was unnecessary. He showed her his meager library and lent her one of the few books he owned that was in French, regretting that he owned absolutely none in Swedish. She sat down again on the sofa and read, and he sat in his chair and wrote, and they left each other to their musing. She seemed in no hurry to leave and, unwilling to push her away, Shahin didn’t suggest it.

They had lunch at four in the afternoon, and when they were done, Christine looked at the clock, sighed, and announced that it was time for her to leave. She had done what she could to her clothes, easing out the wrinkles and wiping away the dirt, but one could still tell she had had a hard night. Shahin felt a bit apprehensive watching her leave, knowing her reputation was tenuous enough as it was, but she didn’t seem to care, even turning and waving goodbye at the street. He waved back and went back inside.

The next two days were very quiet. Shahin’s mind was muted and his heart heavy. He spent long hours simply sitting in his parlor, waiting for a knock at the door. He cleaned his apartment, read several new books, worked in his garden, and wrote several letters that would never be delivered. At night he sat in his room and stared at the mask, the mask he had stolen. It sent a thrill of terror through him, and a thrill of longing. How complex it was, grieving for poor Erik.

Darius came the second day, and stayed with him through the night. Shahin surprised them both by crying no less than five times and allowing Darius to hold him through the tears. They spent the morning indoors, and the evening out in the garden. Shahin was grateful beyond words for the other man’s company. Darius had the ability to make anyone laugh, no matter how morose they were, and he utilized this to the fullest in the wake of one of the greater tragedies of Shahin’s life. He didn’t comment on the mask on the table, insisting only that Shahin put it away before going to bed. He left the following morning, leaving Shahin with a kiss on the brow and a promise of brighter days to come...eventually. He didn’t entirely understand the depth of the loss, having never cared for Erik as deeply as Shahin had, but he knew they had a long history built on a strange rapport of inappropriate laughter and misplaced loyalty, and that Shahin pitied Erik less and loved him more than perhaps was healthy.

Darius came only once that week. Shahin brooding was a rare thing, and he knew to leave him to it, so his absence was not a surprise. What  _ was _ a surprise was the unannounced knock on the door on the fifth day following Erik’s funeral, and, the even greater surprise was that Shahin opened the door to Christine Daae. She was wearing cleaner, neater clothes in muted greys, still in mourning without being too suspicious about it. Once again Shahin worried for her reputation, but he did nothing more than invite her in. She thanked him, met his eyes for a moment, and looked away.

She sat down on the sofa and picked up her book again, but made no move to open it. She accepted Shahin’s offer of coffee shortly, and accepted the cup without looking at him.

He sat down in his chair and waited.

Christine really was lovely. Even in this sorrowful hour, she was nothing but color. Her skin was browned from sun and genetics, and darker freckles stood out all over her face. Her hair was golden-brown, and even beneath a black scarf was as warm as the sun. Her eyes were pale blue and her cheeks were apple red. She dressed darkly, but even in shadows she shone. Shahin understood how Erik’s fascination could have turned to love, if love indeed he dared to call it. Even speaking, her voice was musical and angelic, and trembling with emotion.

“I hope I’m not imposing.”

“Not at all. My days are quite dull now.”

“Now that...I mean...now that…”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” She finally opened her book, but it seemed more to be a formality, because she just stared down at it. “Say, monsieur, would you answer a question for me?”

Shahin sighed inwardly, but nodded. “Of course, Miss...Christine.”

He expected her to ask him about Erik, for logically that is all they could have to talk about...but instead she asked him about the book. She wanted to know whether the protagonist’s laughter was a mistranslation, or if he really did treat his grave situation so flippantly. Shahin couldn’t help being taken aback, but he was only too happy to launch into an explanation. They spoke about it for a few hours, and Christine proved herself to be delightful company. She smiled easily and, again, Shahin thought to himself she would laugh just as easily were her spirits not so depressed. For those five hours, Shahin does not think of Erik once, except to commend him for choosing the one woman in all of the world with a heart loving enough to withstand him.

Christine left just before five, pressing Shahin’s hand and promising to come again.

She did.

In fact, Christine came to visit every day for the next two weeks. After the second time, Shahin came to expect her knock, strong and loud and just about noon. More often than not, she sat down and read, though he convinced her one day to walk with him around the block, if only to show everyone that they were two people in mourning and not a predatory old man preying on a weeping young woman. She was amused when he admitted his misgivings about her reputation, and assured him that, if anyone were to recognize her (which she seemed to think was far less likely than it was), there was little they could say that could possibly drag her name any further into shadow and mystique.

“You know,” she mused, “they may assume that  _ you  _ are my mysterious singing teacher!”

Shahin, whose singing voice could be best described as a baritone goat, could only laugh at the thought. Her nonchalance was infectious, however, and he tried to shoo his fretting away. Given his character, it returned very quickly, and he was constantly looking over his shoulder to ensure no one was giving her any ill will.  _ His _ reputation was bad as well, but in this instance it worked in his favor. He glared away the few people who stopped and stared.

Several times Christine and Darius came at around the same time, and Shahin found himself sitting in between two rays of sunshine, sipping his coffee and wisely not interrupting their chatter. They got along like two peas in a pod, Christine and Darius. They were simple souls, happy souls, seeking comfort in the most mundane of things. Christine was prone to crying at any moment, and seemed not to care whether Shahin or Darius comforted her, so long as someone was there to pet her hair and read her a passage or two from a book.

The sixteenth night after Erik’s funeral, Christine pressed his hand again as she left. Her eyes were red and she was sniffling still from her latest outburst, but she smiled and her eyes shone with hope that Shahin had yet to regain.

“Good night, Shahin,” she said earnestly. “I won’t be back for a long time, I think, but...I promise I shall not forget you.”

Shahin would have been contented if that had been the last he saw of Christine Daae. Not happy, perhaps, but content with his lot in life. Given how little he had influenced her, and how much she had already given him, her presence in one of the darker periods of his life was a Godsend, and he found himself thinking that perhaps Erik was not far off in his conviction that Christine was an angel.

Erik also believed that Christine was willful and unpredictable. When the first letter fell on his doorstep in a looping, feminine hand, Shahin found himself agreeing with that conclusion as well.

Christine’s letter was very long and he could practically see her face as she was writing it, biting her tongue and openly emoting her every thought. She opened the letter,  _ Dearest Persian _ , and signed it,  _ Affectionately, Christine.  _ She regaled him with plenty of details about her journey, from the colors of the sunsets to the improvised names of the horses that bore her to the train. She recounted a few (very few) happier memories she had of Erik, though she was quick to turn the subject away from him and seemed guilty for daring to think well of him. She told him that she and her vicomte would be married very soon, as she had refused to marry him while wearing Erik’s ring, and she told him about the village they had found to live in. The unabashed, detailed correspondence was so unlike the dejected and grey letters she had written in Erik’s captivity that Shahin, for whom those had been his only point of reference for her character, would scarcely have known she was the same woman.

_ ‘I must confess, to you and you alone, that I am still devastated _ ’, she wrote _. ‘I surprise myself, sometimes, with the force of my grief, and at other times I shame myself with my gaiety. I suspect you feel much the same. Which do you suppose he would have wished for us? On one hand, I am sure he wished very much to know that he was loved, and there is no greater show of our love for poor Erik than by grieving him. On the other hand, however, he did so hate when I cried, especially when he knew he was the cause. I do not find it as hard to weep for him as you do, perhaps because I am somewhat ignorant to the details of his past, but I know enough to know that my tears are not wholly undeserved. I weep for him, and I weep about him. _

_ ‘We shall persevere, I think. We are strong. And we are not alone. I have my dearest Raoul to lift me up when I fall to the shadows of despair, and you have your dear Darius to do the same. _

_ ‘I know that perhaps you have greater things to do than to exchange correspondence with a woman who has already proven herself to be somewhat silly and quite pig-headed, but I do pray that you would write back. In the past weeks, I have come to think of you as a very dear friend, or at least the beginning of a very dear friend. If we are united by nothing more than grief, the Opera House, and a love of good romances, so be it.’ _

When faced with such bare-faced honesty and earnest optimism, Shahin could do nothing but respond. He opened his letter,  _ My dear and affectionate Miss Christine, _ and signed it,  _ Yours in this and in everything, Shahin _ . He had less to relate, but he was positive that she didn’t care. Her reply, even longer than her first letter, confirmed this. She conveyed her joy and her vicomte, and asked after his garden, his books, and Darius. He was happy to report only good things on all of those subjects. He congratulated her wedding, and included a shorter message from Darius.

His days went a little easier now. It had been almost six months and he could get through the day without falling suddenly into a pit of despair. At Christine’s encouragement, he dusted off his old coat and went to the Opera again. Not to watch the show, of course...he had something of a reputation to uphold, and it wouldn’t do to tie himself too closely to the rumors of the Opera Ghost. He wandered about backstage, introduced himself mysteriously to the new managers, frightened a few young dancers, and kept an eye on the shadows. In many ways, walking these halls was just like putting on this coat again. It fit somehow, despite his absence, and though there was a bit of stiffness, it felt good and comfortable to be back at something familiar.

He didn’t visit as often, having no need now to make sure that no one died or was injured too seriously, but he still kept a watch on the Opera House, which even without Erik’s influence seemed to attract a fair amount of trouble. His expertise was less helpful now, but he lent a cryptically benevolent hand wherever he could. He kept Christine updated on news and gossip, once he had decided it would cause her no undue distress. She seemed to delight in it.

He kept the mask. Against Darius’s wishes, he refused to keep it hidden away all the time. That reminded him too much of Erik in life, and he would not allow the single memento he kept of the man to fade away in obscure darkness. He settled for setting it on the desk in his parlor. When he was alone, he held conversations with it, not always as if it were Erik.

If his letters were short and slow in coming, Christine never complained. The years rolled on and she continued to write to him faithfully, often not even waiting for a reply. He offered her what advice his years could give her, and she provided him with a guiding light he hadn’t realized he was lacking.

Christine sent him a packet of seeds for his garden. Darius took this in goodnatured despair, and wrote at once to admonish her on the dangers of encouraging Shahin in his endeavors, for surely if he was not stopped he would let his garden spill out onto the street, tripping up any poor souls who wanted to wander the street. Christine laughed at his concern and was quick to assure him that she trusted Shahin’s judgment and discretion...and she also begged him to inform her when the garden grew so, so that she could come and watch the spectacle.

She did come and visit a little while after that, and made a show of being disappointed by the small garden Shahin still nursed. She did not bring her vicomte, and once again made no mention to Shahin as to where she was staying. But every day at noon she showed up as his door, knocking three times in her sure way. She never barged in, though like Darius she was more than welcome to come and go as she pleased. Alas, no one ever intruded quite to seriously on Shahin’s generosity as they used to. Darius didn’t, but he missed being interrupted at odd hours by an ungrateful and finicky visitor.

Christine greeted him now with a firm press of the hand and a warm kiss on the cheek, and breezed into his parlor as if she belonged there. In truth, she looked far more at home on his sofa than anywhere else he had seen her, excepting of course the Opera House stage, but he doubted he would ever see her there again. She picked up the very same book she had two years ago, and he was sure she opened it to the same page she had left off on, and she read until dinner.

When she wasn’t looking, he put away the mask, and she pretended that she hadn’t seen it.

Darius showed up for dinner the first night. At this point, he stayed with Shahin more often than not, warming his bed at the expense of his own. Christine adored him immediately, seeing in him a kindred spirit, and together they kept Shahin from drooping into the morbidly poetic. The three of them walk for a while in the park. Christine is eager to retell all the details of her letters to Darius, who had never read them.

Darius was the first to offer the use of the guest room to Christine, though she immediately refused and insisted that she had somewhere to stay. The fact that she showed up the next day looking considerably ruffled and in the exact same clothes she’d left in didn’t support this claim, but they both knew by now that it was pointless to argue with her. The fifth night, she accepted the offer, to Shahin’s horror, effectively ruining her in the eyes of anyone who might have seen her enter the living space of not one but  _ two _ unmarried men. Luckily, they got no more than a few hard stares, and Shahin, when he could, informed them that Christine was his...daughter-in-law. That seemed plausible enough.

It became a bit more believable the first time she came with her daughter.

It was a stroke of hilarious miscommunication that had the two of them pondering names at around the same time. Shahin was considering getting a cat, and Christine was having a child, and it just so happened that they both ended up being named Margareta. Christine cleared away confusion by calling the cat Maggie and the girl Peggy which, in all honesty, didn’t really clear up the confusion that much at all. She found the entire situation utterly delightful.

Shahin would never admit aloud how much his heart was moved at the news of Christine’s daughter. He had never had children of his own, and had annoyed his siblings by living vicariously through them and their families. He had no qualms, apparently, on doing the very same to Christine, who on the other hand didn’t mind at all. In fact, she seemed to relish in his delight, though perhaps this was only because, for the first time, his letters rivalled hers in length. He demanded details on every milestone in the babe’s progress, from her first word to her first step to her first snowfall. He was moved to tears when, without being prompted, she sent him a picture. He was, perhaps, a bit  _ too _ excited at this, showing Darius and everyone who passed him in the street. He even startled a few Opera patrons, sliding up from the shadows and showing them portraits of the little girl he was forced to claim as his granddaughter.

When Christine showed up unannounced on New Year’s Day with a little girl on her hip, Shahin was literally struck speechless. He invited them in with more enthusiasm than manners, more delight than dignity.

Little Peggy had her father’s coloring, but you could see Christine in her face. What paleness she may have taken from her mother was offset by how much time she spent outside, for there was scarcely a moment they visited that Shahin did not have her outdoors, either in his garden or at a nearby park, and from what he understood, her father was much the same. Raoul, Christine said, had no desire to return to Paris, though he sent his love and a letter of his own, which Shahin responded to that very night. Shahin was sure there was more to it than mere discomfort...but rather than cause Christine any undue distress by asking, he pretended not even to notice her husband’s absence. It was much easier, after all, to focus on Peggie.

She was an adventurous and excitable child, always running after something. The upside to this, Christine claimed, was that when she slept, she slept very hard. At two-and-a-half years old, she was already very advanced, speaking clear and accentless Swedish that Shahin did not understand at all. In the two months she was in Paris, she picked up enough French to know when she was in trouble, and when she was getting a treat.

“I cannot deny that I envy you, Miss Christine,” Shahin admitted as they watched Peggy tumble after Maggie, who was by no means appreciative of the attention. “And I regret to inform you that I shall continue to intrude upon your domestic bliss as much as you would possibly allow.”

She turned an eye to him and looked to Darius, who was sitting a few feet away, keeping one eye on his sketchbook and the other on his charges. Though he had grumbled in protest at Christine and Peggy intruding into their home (for it was now very much  _ their _ home; after Erik’s death, Shahin had been unable to keep up the pretense of solitude any longer and, now that there was no longer the constant worry of an unwelcome intruder at odd hours, there wasn’t any reason for the two of them to live apart), he looked at Peggy with the same shine in his eyes, and, Shahin thought, perhaps with the same longing that he himself felt. At that very moment, he looked up and asked Peggy in the most polite voice to please not crush the roses, they were Shahin’s pride. He put his things aside and lifted the little girl up onto his shoulders and cradled the cat to his chest. Shahin’s heart plummeted to his stomach, and he understood not for the first time how it was possible that someone might die of happiness. He excused himself and got up, untangling Peggy’s legs from Darius’s neck and endeavoring to teach her the importance of being kind and gentle to plants. Christine looked at the two of them, kneeling beside a child that could very well have been related to either of them, and smiled. That night, when Peggy was asleep, she sat very close to Shahin and held his hand and said,

“You may intrude upon my bliss as you like, though I wish you would not use such a word. No...no, I quite forbid you to use such a word! Surely you realize by now, my dearest Shahin, that my ‘domestic bliss,’ as you put it, is not bliss at all if it does not include you?” She looked across the table to Darius, who was making a very good show of ignoring them too. “And you as well, I think! Yes, you are both quite dear to me, and quite essential to my happiness! If I had known what those depressing months at the Opera would have begotten…! Perhaps I would have not wallowed so in my sorrows!”

It was with a heavy heart that Shahin escorted Christine and Peggy away. He promised, rather redundantly, to write often, and extracted a promise from Christine to visit more often. She had already come three times, but that was not enough for him, who had come to love her dearly quickly.

He and Darius lived on well enough in the absence of the women. They didn’t have a daughter, but they had Maggie , and most days that was close enough.

The next time she visited was only six months later, and she was alone. Though Shahin is disappointed at the absence of her daughter, the thought did not escape him that perhaps this was divine intervention. There had been a strange urge during her last visit which, with her daughter present, he had decided to be rather inconvenient.

He brought it up over dinner, waiting wisely until Darius had left the room before asking, in a low conspiratorial tone,

“Miss Christine, have you any desire to go to the Opera?”

The first few moments of silence convinced Shahin that he had made a mistake. It had been eight years and his chest was no longer a gaping hole, but he realized perhaps he had misjudged Christine, mistaking her happiness for forgetfulness, or for forgiveness. It was easy for him to forget how Erik had touched them when his influences had become nothing more than strange habits with no repercussions, but he may have been wrong to assume that the dark dreams that still sometimes visited him did not also prey upon poor Christine.

However, she surprised him again, looking up from the map she was studying. She searched his face for a long moment, searching for...he could not even begin to guess. She looked terrified at first, which almost inspired him to rescind the invitation, but then she looked thoughtful, perhaps even wistful. She leaned away from the table very slowly, and looked to where Darius had gone into the other room. Copying Shahin’s low tone, she asked,

“Darius doesn’t approve?”

Shahin frowned. “Not at all,” he admitted. “He will, of course, support me in whatever I choose to do, but he thinks it is overly sentimental of me to continue habits that have, in the past, been rather detrimental to my well-being.”

“What do you think about that?” She no longer looked merely thoughtful. She seemed to be  _ eagerly  _ awaiting his response, whether for encouragement or information he couldn’t begin to guess. She also looked slightly teasing, which was never good.

“I think perhaps he should have considered such things before becoming so intimately entangled with a man who is known for nothing else but his sentimentality.” He blinked, and thought on his own answer a moment. It was rather more telling than he had intended it to be. “It was sentimentality, Miss Christine, that involved me with Erik in the first place. It was sentimentality that drove me to save his life all those years ago, and it was sentimentality that stayed my hand for all those years when I could have put an end to him.”

“Sentimentality,” she repeated slowly, and shook her head. Her hair, which had grown quite long and curly, framed her face like golden fire. “Sentimentality has driven both of us to great lengths, my dear Persian.” She tried to look haughty and unaffected, but her eyes shone intensely and her delicate hands were curled into fists on her lap. She was frowning, and Shahin had to stop himself from comparing her to a child, for after all these years, she still had a slight pout that made her look petulant below her years.

“Yes. Nay...not sentimentality. I would dare to say that it is not sentimentality, nor even pity that drives us any longer, my dear Miss Daae.” He looked deep into her face, and chose his next words with care. “I do believe we are motivated by love. Or the memory of love.”

“Love.” She repeated, softer this time. “Yes, I would dare to say that it is love that motivates us.” She sighed, and closed her eyes, perhaps thinking back. For some reason, he expected her to start singing, but she didn’t. She just said, “Love of the most exquisite kind, I think.” She opened her eyes, and smiled, and it did not seem as tired as he had grown accustomed to. “I would very much like to go to the Opera.”

And so they did. It was not a terribly good production, but Shahin didn’t care one way or the other. He had never really gone to the opera for quality anyway. (He came, of course, to ogle the cast.) Christine watched the entire thing with rapture, and he watched her with delight. They were almost anonymous in the crowd. There were very few now who still spoke about the affair of Christine Daae and the Opera Ghost, and for that he was glad. It was a strange and intimate enough affair without a stranger intruding.

After the performance, which Christine regarded with no small amount of tears, Shahin abused his privileges and let Christine lead him unimpeded through the many corridors of the House. She knew them as well as he did, perhaps even better, for she had dominion over the upper levels while he had only ever dwelled in the lower. She took him on a trip through her own memories, pointing out places of inspiration and places of hiding. She showed him where she had first heard La Carlotta sing, and told him how it had shaken and inspired her. She showed him where she and all the other chorus girls had knelt and prayed when one of their number fell sick with scarlet fever and seemed to be near death. She showed him where she kissed a young dancer, and where they had said their goodbyes when the girl had decided that perhaps ballet was not her calling after all. Last Christine had heard, she was living with alone in a large house, surrounded by lots of nieces and nephews who were the none the wiser to her indiscretion. She showed him the roof, where he had been before several times, but never just to look out over the city.

Christine stood at the very edge and looked out at Paris, and there was not a bit of longing in her eyes. Shahin slid his hand into his coat and brushed his fingers against the black satin that rested against his breast.

They avoided going down below, and they did not visit a single dressing room. By the time they quitted the Opera House, it was well past midnight, but they did not return to the apartment right away. Instead, they turned their steps towards the park, wandering around in circles. For the first time, Christine asked Shahin about Erik and, for the first time, Shahin spoke without reservation about Erik.

He held nothing back. He sang of Erik’s praises in the very same breath that he touted him as a monster, acknowledging both his genius and his insanity, his glory and his tragedy. He avoided too much detail, not out of any misguided attempt to spare Christine’s delicacy, but perhaps to preserve his own. His own convictions had had time to soften in the years since Erik’s death, and he found himself wanting to hold onto that. Erik had received little to no mercy in life, and he felt he owed him this small mercy in death. There were few enough people who would think to remember him, and it was best, he thought, if those few remembered him with more than passing fondness.

They stopped walking. Christine was openly weeping, not even bothering to wipe away the tears that tumbled freely and abundantly down her pale cheeks, and Shahin’s eyes glistened as they stared off into some unseen point in his own past. He related what he knew of Erik’s past before he knew him, most of which he had gleaned from conjecture or learned by accident. He told an abridged history of the “rosy hours of Mazenderan,” as he had always referred to them, recalling with no small amount of pride how he had assisted Erik in his escape from the country...and how disappointed he had been when the man repeated the exact same ordeal in another country.

“The rosy hours of Mazenderan,” Christine repeated, and Shahin found he didn’t care at all to hear those bloody words from her mouth. “I suppose that must be very apt, though I do not hesitate to scold you both for being poets. It does you absolutely no good.” Her light-hearted words were belied by the fact that she wept still, but the tears were less bitter now. “In Erik’s case, it led him to his grave. I forbid you from being a poet from this moment on, my dearest Shahin. I shall not have you torn from me abruptly.” She pressed his hand tightly and allowed him to speak on. interrupting more frequently now. She seemed to know, somehow, that he could no longer speak without interruptions.

He doesn’t know why they started to relate the events of Erik’s final months, for surely they both knew them intimately, but they found their way back to the apartment, sat by the light of the fire, and shared everything. By the end of it, they were both crying again, but they both went to bed feeling lighter. That night, Shahin’s dreams were not bloody, and Christine dreamt of angels.

Christine left a week later, departing early in the morning. She showed up on Shahin’s doorstep to say goodbye, sitting out with him in the garden for nearly an hour saying her long goodbyes. She sighed at the sight of the sun rising, partly at the beauty and partly at the herald of her farewell. She turned to Shahin and held his hand very tightly to her chest.

“You know, it is not only love for him that brings me back here.”

Shahin sighed, either in sorrow or in amusement at the energy of younger people. “I know,” he assured her. “And it is not only love for him that has me opening my door for you.”

“I do wish you would come with me,” she pressed, not for the first time. “You and Darius both. You are both welcome, and you would both be happier--”

“It  _ is _ love for him that keeps me here,” Shahin interrupted her. “I am happy here, far though I am from you and your Peggy and your vicomte. Believe it or not, I am actually rather partial to the Opera.”

She laughed and dipped her head.

Remembering painfully a conversation long ago, Shahin leaned forward and kissed her forehead. Without seeing her, he felt the warmth of her smile and inclined his head, letting her kiss him gently.

“Good morning, my dear Persian,” she said.

“Good morning, Miss Daae.”

That was the last time Christine came back to France, and though she never said it, Shahin knew as she walked away that the merry hours of Paris were done. Let it be a comfort that this was by no means the end of their correspondence, however. The next letter he received from her was four months later, announcing another pregnancy. Though he felt nowhere near the same joy as he had with Peggy, Shahin rejoiced at the news of little Phillipa’s birth.

He continued, as he promised, to leech off of Christine’s domestic bliss--nay, not bliss. Normalcy, perhaps, that he had quite willingly given up in accordance with his heart’s desire. He  _ had  _ bliss, and an abundance of it. What did a man need to be blissful but love and a good hobby? Shahin was blessed with both. He had Darius, Maggie, his garden, and his library. And, when he was perhaps beginning to take those things for granted, he had Christine.

Her letters came less frequently as she juggled her home life and her music, and she made up for this by doing away with any pretense of brevity, and filling veritable volumes with her letters. Raoul wrote a few times a year and, as soon as she learned how, Peggy was also sending letters piggy-backed onto her mother’s.

Shahin’s life became rather dull, with that last bit of young vivacity gone forever. He refused to admit that maybe he was getting to the age where this was a good thing. He still walked and gardened and read and wrote, but it began to actually catch up with him now that that was all he  _ had _ to do. Well...perhaps not all. He still had Darius, after all, who was by no means low maintenance.

He stopped going to the Opera, for multiple reasons. One reason was that they stopped showing anything that interested him. Another was that, with Erik forgiven and Christine gone, there was little need for him to hang around that particular house any longer, now that one stage was just as meaningful as any other. Yet another was that the man in the felt hat had been getting more and more blunt with his dismissals, and at this point, Shahin quite seriously feared for this life.

‘ _ I cannot risk my life, my dear Miss Christine, now that I have finally achieved bliss. The streets here are as quiet as streets in Paris can be and, so long as I do not look out the window, I can pretend that I am somewhere better.’ _

Not that he particularly  _ hated  _ Paris, but it was not where he would have preferred Erik to settle down. Somewhere less absurd, he had long ago decided, would have been vastly preferable. Christine, upon reading this, laughed aloud and declared Shahin did not know himself.

‘ _ Paris is just absurd enough for you, my dearest Persian, _ ’ she assured him. _ ‘I dare say he could not have settled down anywhere more perfect.’ _

More perfect for Erik or for himself, Shahin found himself wondering in odder moments. Neither man could really be said to have  _ flourished _ in their time there, not when one considered that one was dead of a broken heart and the other was living in an apartment alone with several cats.

Melancholy snuck up at the strangest of times. Shahin surprised himself by continuing to actively grieve Erik, some days waking up in a panic because it had been too long since he’d seen him, and surely he was desperate by now for some contact. That was one thing that no one else had quite understood, he thought. It was partly out of necessity that he had sought Erik out so frequently. He’d needed human interaction, Shahin was convinced, to keep him more level-headed and rational than he had been in the past. Age may have mellowed him out, but Shahin liked to believe that some of his later mildness was due in some small part to Shahin’s continued affections.

He still kept the mask. He kept it clean and soft, which was difficult considering how often he found himself  _ needing _ to hold it in his hands, to prove that it was real, that it had all been real, and that it was over.

_ ‘You know, it is very quiet without our mutual friend,’  _ he wrote one evening, when he was feeling too deeply for discretion.  _ ‘It has been almost ten years now, and I still wake some nights mistaking a branch against the window for Erik at the door. You are not so intimate, God be praised, with the effects of thirty years of acquaintance with him-- I dare say I am the only man who can make such a claim, and if that makes me privileged or cursed only God knows. Suffice it to say that it leaves lingering habits and thought patterns that are utterly useless in “real life”, and that said habits and thoughts are completely impossible to separate from your personality. _

_ ‘You asked me a question, my dear Miss Daae, that I quite shamelessly avoided, resorting to--heaven help me-- poetics to buy myself time and space for a suitable response. With so little paper left, I suppose I must say this: Yes, I do think I miss him. I cannot find it in me even after these ten years of contemplation to be glad that he is gone, for though his suffering and monstrous acts are ceased, so too are our nights of sitting awake and laughing and our days of arguing which, with the privilege of hindsight, I see now was only the potentially fatal affectionate conversation of very good friends. _

_ ‘Alas, I fall again to the trap of poetry. Forgive me, I beg you, and give my regards to your vicomte and my love to your daughters, and all the same from Darius.’ _

The days passed with little incident for both of them as they settled into the routines of people who are far past the far-too-exciting days of youth and adventure. Maggie had kittens with a stray who didn’t realize he was supposed to be a stray, and Shahin had only the heart to give two away. One he gave to a neighbor who needed a companion, and the other to a friend who needed a mouser. The other four he kept, and fell prey to the plaintive mewing of their father, and allowed him in as well. He fully expected Darius to object, knowing the man had always had something of an issue with too many living beings in a small space, but he was just as taken with the kittens, going so far as to claim one for himself. Zenith cared very much for this distinction, snubbing Shahin as often as she could, to remind him of his place.

Shahin’s favorite of the litter was a tortoiseshell with eyes a most alarming shade of yellow. She was the runt of the litter, and showed her affection with a rasping meow and kneading claws. She followed on his heels like a dog, and many nights he would go to the park and find her trailing a few feet behind him, torn between following him and looking around. She was precocious and energetic, and through her Shahin regained something of his old sharpness. Though rescuing her from pipes was nothing like saving Erik from himself, it was remarkably similar in ways he would never had admitted to the man while he was alive. For no other reason than to spite Darius, he named her Nadir.

Darius’s only complaints with the cats were in the summer, when the heat of the night was exacerbated by the six furry bodies on top of theirs.

“Don’t be so harsh with them,” Shahin scolded after watching Darius push another cat onto the floor.

“I’m going to die of heat!” Darius insisted, poking at Maggy. They exchanged glares, and she quite deliberately stretched over his legs.

“Not heat!” Shahin grinned. “It is of love! Surely you can see! I would rather die of this manner than any other, of excess of affection! There is no better alternative, I think, to know that you are adored!”

“Adored for your wealth, perhaps! Anyone would love a man who puts a roof on their head and pays for food without asking for anything!”

“Why, Darius! You imply that you adore me because I provide for you!”

“Not at all. You demand a heavy price of me.”

“I demand only your affection! It is the same with the cats.”

Darius laughed at that. “Yes,” he agreed. “I guess it’s the same with the cats.” When a kitten settled on his chest, he made no move to displace her, lying back and falling quickly to sleep.

Christine’s brood grew as his own did. Her third child came in the winter of 1893, the son Shahin was sure Raoul had been wishing for. He delighted in the news, as he had in all of her children. It was one more package to include in his almost monthly bundle of gifts, because Shahin was nothing if he was not generous and bored. Christine capitalized on this, begging him all the more earnestly to come and visit her family for at least a little while.

_ ‘I have visited you six times--nay! Seven! And they have all been very long visits! As a married woman, you must realize that  was no easy feat, and so you must not think ill of me demanding you return the favor! Come, my dear Persian, and do not deny my husband and daughters the joy of your company! Little Marte (that is what I have taken to calling Peggy now that she is Quite Grown Up) remembers you still and asks after every letter from Papa Persisk!’ _

He gave what was almost an affirmative to tease her, but, for the first time, felt that perhaps it was high time that he made the journey she herself had made several times for him. The joy of the news had not been able to dull the feeling of foreboding that had settled in his gut shortly after reading her letter. He knew the feeling well, and prayed every day that it was not what he knew it to be. He put off his trip in the hopes that he would not invite disaster but, alas, it was too little too late, and, in the end, he would regret to the end of his days not visiting sooner.

On the morning of November 15th 1895, Shahin received a letter on his doorstep. All day he had fought off a black and foul mood, and as soon as he saw the careful, masculine hand, he knew that the worst had come to pass.

Raoul didn’t mince words. There was no poetry in his prose, no hesitation before he plunged the knife into Shahin’s chest. Christine was dead, succumbing at last to the illness and weakness that had plagued her since her son’s birth. She was not in any pain, don’t fret, monsieur, and died peacefully. She died surrounded by her children, and a few days before she expired she had written one final letter to him, which was enclosed. Shahin didn’t bring himself to read it for months. When he did, he wept so bitterly that he immediately put it away and didn’t open it again for years. It was too bright, too joyous for him to contemplate in this, the darkest hour of his life.

He missed Christine’s burial, and her funeral, unable to leave his house for more than a month after receiving the news. He traveled north alone (alone save for Nadir, of course), and showed up at her doorstep as she had showed up at his so many times. He did not expect a warm welcome, for all that he had kept up with Christine, he had woefully neglected her vicomte, and was surprised when, immediately upon entering, he was brought into an embrace so tight it cracked his heart.

“You are always welcome,” Raoul said, in a voice still thick with grief. Pulling away, Shahin saw the same raw sorrow he himself felt, and he almost fell apart again on the doorstep. They had a beautiful house, colorful and cheerful despite the dejection, big enough to suggest that they had considered perhaps more than the children they had.

He was ushered quickly out of the cold, and was immediately taken in by the sight of two grieving little girls sitting by the fire. Peggy, little Peggy, looked at him with huge eyes still red, and held her little brother in her lap. Shahin’s heart, despite its weight and pain, was moved by the sight of them, moved to tears by their quiet acceptance of his presence. He sat by the fire, warming his hands, and without saying a thing, Peggy came and sat beside him. It was the most natural thing in the world to put his hand on her hair, petting at the curls that were so much like her mother’s.

He stayed with them for many months, staying in a room that, given time and luck, might have known another son. Raoul didn’t ever complain, and Shahin was glad of it. He would have left the moment it seemed his presence was unwanted, but he would have been injured to do so. He spent most of the day with the children, and much of the night with Raoul. Neither man seemed able to sleep much. Raoul surprised him by regularly engaging him in conversation. Sometimes they spoke of The Past, and sometimes they didn’t. They spoke almost exclusively of Christine and of the children, which wasn’t that awkward all things considered.

Raoul still harbored a love of the sea, and had convinced Christine to move as close to the ocean as possible. Every day he took the children (actually, most days it was just Phillipa-- Peggy complained bitterly of the cold, and Petter was too young to be out for too long) out to the sea for hours at a time, and in these long stretches of solitude, Shahin allowed himself to brood (mostly, actually, he played with the cat. Nadir refused to be neglected, even in times of soul-rending sorrow).

The first trip to Christine’s grave was a journey that threatened to tear Shahin apart with every step he took, but he gradually got used to the sensation, as it by no means abated with every consequent trip. Sometimes he went alone, sometimes he took a child, sometimes he took the whole family. It didn’t matter. It felt like a solitary thing no matter who was with him.

The path leading to her grave was well-walked; she had been loved. Shahin brushed shoulders with the shadows of all the others who had come this way, and his tears were only a few drops in the rainstorm on her grave. Nadir twisted around his ankles every now and then, tripping him just often enough that he didn’t forget about her, perhaps knowing that if he allowed himself to be wholly swallowed up in his grief, he would drown in it.

Words weren’t right. Songs weren’t right. There was nothing right about this. This was unlike Erik’s death. He hadn’t seen this coming. He hadn’t prepared for this. There was no silver lining in this, not for him and not for her. Perhaps Erik’s death had been unorthodox in how complicated it was to grieve. There was nothing complicated here. There was only emptiness, only sorrow, only absence.

He stood with her for a long time, a potted plant under one arm and her favorite book under another. He stood until the wind chilled him to his bones and his hair was slick with rain and his hips and shoulders burned from standing still so long. He stood over her and he tried to remember everything. Remembering, he discovered quickly, was no less painful than forgetting. He remembered sitting at the Opera, watching her hold back tears at a love story that was doomed from the start. He remembered watching her play with her daughter, cheeks red with laughter. He remembered a silent carriage ride, dirt beneath their nails. He remembered her tears healing a heart so damaged it was scarcely a heart at all. He remembered plunging into hell to save her, and having her carry him back out.

Shahin left the potted plant on her grave and left the book on her mantle, and he went home. Nadir curled in his coat pocket and slept.

**Author's Note:**

> I've made the Persian sad. I've made myself sad. :( As with all my works, I am not pleased with the end. :/ Feels rushed. Hrmph. I'm still happy with this overall though. 
> 
> Did you guys see where I flipped off Kay!verse? Did you see the Hamilton references? Did you see where they all started talking like each other? If you didn't, I'm going to point it all out, because I'm proud of myself.


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